Hi there! I've only made 1 2D game called Mr. BallGuy. I'm only 13, so it isn't the greatest thing in the world. It was created using LÖVE, the Lua game engine. I want to use Python for game development. I've tried PyGame, but things are overly complicated using that library... but maybe that's because of the lack of video tutorials. Is this an indication that I should not use Python for game development? Obviously I don't want to make a huge CoD game, I actually dislike those sorts of game(the HD get's on my nerves, I prefer pixel graphics. And I just dislike FPS games). I know of Fret's on Fire, and that looks like a good game, but doesn't run on my Mac because Power-PC's are no longer supported. I've tried Cocos2D, and there is no documentation on it what-so-ever.

What I'm really looking for is all the power of LÖVE in a Python game API. Does such an API exist? If so, is it well documented and are there many games made with it?

There are a few things in Game Programming that I don't understand, for example how to make a platformer and random terrain generation. A general guide on those would be appreciated.

So, please help me! Thanks!

EDIT: I should have listed what I want to have in a game engine:

Tiled Map SupportBig communitySimple APICross Platform(Mac, Linux, Windows is optional because it sucks, and mobile is a bonus)

the documentation for pygame is horrible, and a lot of tutorials out there show bad programming practice, but that doesn't mean to just scrap pygame altogether. If you can google correctly, and determine bad programming practices, and convert them, you'll do fine with it.

how to make a platformer

even after you know python, even after you know methods, functions in pygame, this may still take you months to figure it out. Start small with simple things first.

Pygame really is quite powerful and honestly, the fundamentals of 2d graphics aren't going to be much different between languages/APIs. That said pygame is a bit lacking in support these days. You will find tons of awful information regarding pygame (even in the form of published books). Ignore all advice that would have you code in the global namespace; ignore any and all tutorials that even remotely suggest you should use:

and ignore any tutorials you find that even suggest coding games without classes.

As for programming a platformer, it depends what you want. Making a 2d platformer that is comprised of all flat surfaces wouldn't be too hard. Creating a platformer that can handle sloped surfaces decently as well as moving platforms/obstacles is actually somewhat advanced. That said, even for the simple version you will need to get decent at collision detection.

Just jump into some of the sample code here in this forum and post any questions you have if/when you get stuck.

-Mek

Edit:It should be made clear. Pygame is absolutely not a game engine. It is an API. You will certainly need to know how to code to get something to work with it, so if you are looking for an all-in-one game creation engine, this isn't it. That said, there are definitely tiled loading scripts you can use and pretty much anything else you can think of.